Photography, Video
2014- ongoing

Don’t you see, baby, this is perfection

This image is of a found video footage of (Chinese) dancing girls at a KTV lounge in Eminent Plaza in a luau costume dancing to Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie. As one of the many videos within a IBM Notebook left behind in Club de Bosses KTV at Eminent Plaza, the performances & ‘numbered girls’ serve as promotional material of what performances alongside the hostesses they have at the club. To me, this image is part of a body of work that looks at the larger context of how different people try to make meaning & connection in liminal spaces within our urban society. The smiling faces & gestures of the women belie a sense of loneliness (& desperation almost) that operates at the level of monetised 'fun' activities. The unequal hierarchies of labour involved within the KTV spaces also underscore the semi-secrecy of the (sex) activities/industry within our pragmatic society.

The looped video projection piece will be an abstracted version of the found footage to examine the notion of labour within such industry. The projection will be made (top down) onto a surface made of lavender talcum powder as a reference point to where the footage was found, in Lavender Street.


And I'm on tonight you know my hips don't lie
And I'm starting to feel it's right
All the attraction, the tension
Don't you see, baby, this is perfection

- Shakira, Hips Don't Lie